[23] This riddle is solved in the fourth line following. The light of the fear and love of God begins in the middle of our bodily frame, with the heart. Bunyan's love of religious riddles is seen in the second part of the Pilgrimage, when Christian is resting at the house of Gaius.—Ed.
[24] Convictions of sin make the soul turn from sin.—Ed.
[25] This character is admirably drawn in the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress—Mr. Brisk, a suitor to Mercy.—Ed.
[26] Preterite of the verb 'to save,' from the Saxon agan, to be held or bound by moral obligation.—Imperial Dictionary.—Ed.
[27] What folly, nay, madness, for man to pretend to make God of a little flour, or to rely for forgiveness of sin on a wafer, a bit of bread, or a little wine or water. How degraded is he that pretends to believe such palpable absurdities.—Ed.
[28] This is one of Bunyan's keen, shrewd, home thrusts. Clothes professedly made to hide what they studiously display!!—Ed.
[29] Possessed me with, or has given me possession of.—Ed.
[30] Man's sinfulness, by nature and practice, justly, but awfully described.—Mason.
[31] See Proverbs 30:20, and Pilgrim's Progress. There is also a very striking allusion to the subject of this emblem, in Bunyan's Light in Darkness.
[32] He who, in riper years, seeks happiness in sensual gratification, is a child in understanding: he only changes his toys.—Ed.